Snake Bite Risks
Red Rock Biologics markets a Rattlesnake Vaccine for dogs that are known to be at risk for rattlesnake bites. This vaccine can help dogs survive and recover more quickly from rattlesnake bites. The vaccine has a good reputation across the country for being safe, effective, and having very few side effects.
This information will briefly cover 10 topics concerning that vaccine. These topics include rattlesnake bite risks or how likely and how damaging a rattlesnake bite can be. It will cover Rattlesnake Vaccine basic information and protocol, or how to use the vaccine to get the best protection for each dog’s situation. It will cover vaccine safety and potential side effects you might encounter with the vaccine, and how to best treat them. It will cover effectiveness and limitations of the vaccine, snake species cross protection (including what snake species it will not work against), snake bite diagnosis and treatment considerations for vaccinated dogs, and finally indication or how to identify dogs at risk for rattlesnake bites.
Why is Rattlesnake Vaccine necessary? Although most dogs are never exposed to rattlesnakes, but those that are face a very real danger. Dogs are at risk whenever they are actually exposed to rattlesnakes. This is especially true for dog owners who live in areas that have rattlesnakes.
Another common use of the vaccine is for dog owners who don’t have rattlesnakes in their back yards, but live only a few miles from open spaces, and regularly take their dogs walking in areas that have rattlesnakes. Approximately ten million Americans go camping or do other activities in wilderness areas every year and a lot of them take their dogs with them. This is why people who live hundreds of miles from rattlesnakes might still have dogs that would be candidates for the vaccine.
This vaccine is very popular with hunters because a good hunting dog is expensive to train and is generally also a family pet. Hunting dogs are often at extremely high risk for rattlesnake bites and are generally far from veterinary care when they are bitten. Any place or activity that would lead a dog to have contact with a rattlesnake would make that dog a good candidate for rattlesnake vaccine. Red Rock Biologics sells Rattlesnake Vaccine to the United States armed forces and their vaccine is used in border patrol dogs.
Rattlesnakes can be found throughout most of the United States and are a significant problem in some regions. Some people may ask “Why vaccinate a dog when a rattlesnake bite can be treated by a veterinarian?” The answer is that snake bites can destroy skin and muscle, cause permanent liver, kidney, neurological, and joint damage, the bites are severely painful, and, of course, they can be life threatening even when veterinary treatment is immediately available. Even when dogs survive, rattlesnake bites to unvaccinated dogs can take months to heal because of the necrosis of the skin and muscle around the bite site. This muscle destruction and neurological damage may never fully heal.
Treating rattlesnake bites can be difficult. Dogs may lose limbs as a result. There are at least three very common situations where veterinarians will not be able to treat rattlesnake bites at all. The first is when dogs are bitten in the back country and too far away from emergency veterinary care. Second, dog owners don’t always know when rattlesnakes have bitten their dogs. This second situation is especially true when there are rattlesnakes around the dog’s home. Rattlesnakes can bite dogs while the owner is asleep or away at work and so the dog owner might not know for hours that his dog has been bitten. Also, dog owners can’t always afford the costly treatment for rattlesnake bites. Treating a bad rattlesnake bite in an unvaccinated dog can cost thousands of dollars. Vaccination just makes sense as a first line of veterinary defense against rattlesnake bites.
Another good reason for vaccination of a dog is that antivenin is expensive and often totally unavailable so most veterinary clinics don’t stock it. Consequently, even though a dog owner may be close to a vet, it is possible their vet does not have all the methods available to treat a severe rattlesnake bite. Antivenin is the only specific treatment for rattlesnake bites and costs several hundred dollars per vial.
Rattlesnake bites are common. Many veterinary hospitals that use rattlesnake vaccine treat several rattlesnake bites per year. Dogs and cats are about 20 times more likely than people to be bitten by venomous snakes. Every year, venomous snakes in the United States bite about 7,000 to 8,000 humans. The best estimate of the number of dogs and cats is 150,000 (Peterson, Michael, and Patricia Talcott, Small Animal Toxicology, Saunders, 2005). But why would a dog be at a higher risk of snake bite than a human?
Dogs are more at risk for snake bite because of their different behaviors, environments, and instincts. Dogs tend to be curious explorers. Many dogs spend a lot of time unsupervised in back yards. They sense the world by smell and are notorious for sticking their noses where it is just not safe to be. They generally don’t know any better than to stay away from snakes or they don’t see, hear, or smell the snake in time get away. Rattlesnakes strike very quickly and they often don’t rattle before they strike.
Rattlesnakes are difficult to see so people can walk for years in rattlesnake areas and never see one until it strikes. This inability to notice snakes can create a false sense of security in a dog owner.
Dogs and cats are over 300 times more likely to be bitten by venomous snakes than to get rabies. According to the U.S. Government’s Center for Disease Control, there were only 389 cases of rabies reported in dogs and cats in 1999. That’s far fewer than 1/300th of the 150,000 dogs and cats bitten by venomous snakes.
Snake bites are also about 25 times more lethal in dogs than in humans. This is partly because a dog has a smaller body and so she has a harder time fighting off the same amount of venom that a larger human receives. This is also because dogs don’t tend to get medical care that is as prompt or as extensive as humans get after a snake bite.
It can also cost over 100 times as much to treat an unvaccinated dog for snake bite as it does to vaccinate him. Red Rock has had many of reports of hunting dogs who were bitten by rattlesnakes while in the back country, received no veterinary care, and were fully recovered and ready to hunt by the next day.
The bottom line is that vaccination is far safer and far easier than treating rattlesnake bites. For a dog that is at risk to rattlesnake bites, this is like affordable insurance.